Many citizens in South Texas, an area traditionally seen as a Democratic stronghold across the predominantly red state, are changing their political affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
The group driving that change appears to be the Hispanic voting bloc. An NPR Marist poll from late April showed that 52% of Hispanic voters prefer a Republican candidate over a Democratic candidate in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections.
The head of Project Red Texas, Wayne Hamilton, says that Hispanic voters and other lifelong Democrats who have decided to change how they vote are doing so because of the ongoing border crisis, the economy, and the Democratic Party’s tendency to take their votes for granted.
“South Texas is as diverse of a place as you could imagine, and going around saying that because someone has a Hispanic surname that they’re a Democrat, like most people outside of Texas and most in the media do, is just blatantly racist,” Hamilton told Fox News. “Hispanics are individuals. They think for themselves.”
Hamilton claimed that former President Donald Trump saw a jump in support from 2016 to 2020 among Hispanic people due to the reduction of unlawful migration during his term.
In 2016, Trump lost the border counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, and Webb to Hillary Clinton by large margins. Four years later, Trump became the first Republican since Reconstruction to win Zapata County and came within five points of Joe Biden in Starr County, where he had lost by 60 points in 2016.
“What’s happening is the people are seeing the chaos that the Democrats have caused up and down the border by the crazy policies that they have,” Hamilton said.
Terrell County Judge Dale Lynn Carruthers, a Republican, said crime and economic turmoil are the biggest reasons for the shift.
“The transition for people of actually transitioning from blue to red has a lot to do with the severe open border policies and what we’re going through now,” Carruthers said. “Nobody wants their backyard invaded. Nobody wants their property invaded.”
Republican Javier Villalobos was elected mayor of McAllen last year, surprising many in the national media.
“I think a lot of people know, or should know, that Hispanics generally are very conservative,” Villalobos told Fox News last June.
Although Villalobos’ race did not include party affiliation on the ballot and only 10,000 out of the city’s 73,000 registered voters went to the polls, to some, it confirms that Democrats are facing a growing problem in South Texas.
As Texas Monthly reported, Villalobos “had simply met his voters where they were, with a ‘conservative agenda’ of low taxes, limited government spending, and pro-business policies.”
Last year, Texas Representative Ryan Guillen from South Texas’ House District 31 flipped his party affiliation to Republican after being a Democrat since 2002. His district includes Starr, Atascosa, Duval, Brooks, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, La Salle, Live Oak, McMullen, and Willacy counties.
“After much consideration and prayer with my family, I feel that my fiscally conservative, pro-business, and pro-life values are no longer in-step with the Democrat Party of today, and I am proudly running as a Republican to represent House District 31,” Guillen announced in a statement.
Maria Yvette Hernandez, a Republican candidate for judge in Starr County, is one of several Hispanic female candidates currently seeking public office as a Republican in Texas. She also attributes Democrats taking Hispanic votes for granted as a significant reason for the shifting politics in the region.
“I think a lot of the misconception is that we [Hispanics] are Democrats because we’re poor,” Hernandez said. “They associate the fact that we’re in a very low income county thinking that that’s why we vote Democrat. But it’s our conservative values where our culture, in essence, is conservative just by nature. And they’re all assuming that we are Democrats because of per capita income and it’s not necessarily the case.”
Hernandez added that the economy and inflation also drive Hispanic voters to support Republicans.
According to a Quinnipiac poll from April, Biden’s approval rating with the Hispanic population is 26%, with most Hispanic voters citing inflation and border security as the two issues that concern them most.
Hernandez’s campaign is not an anomaly, as Hispanic Republican candidates in Texas are multiplying.
“When the dust clears after the May 24 runoffs, as many as eight Latinos — including six women — could ultimately be Republican nominees for congressional seats across Texas,” wrote Sabrina Rodriguez in POLITICO magazine. “In the Rio Grande Valley alone, at least two Latinas will carry the GOP nod.”
